CancerVax Precision Therapy Successfully Avoids Healthy Liver Cells

In-vitro studies confirm that the Company’s novel Smart mRNA could drastically reduce off-target liver toxicity, a major issue affecting many cancer drugs

Lehi, Oct. 14, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Lehi, Utah, October 14, 2025 – CancerVax, Inc., the developer of a breakthrough universal cancer treatment platform that uses the body’s immune system to treat cancer, today announced that recent in-vitro studies have confirmed that the Company’s technology could significantly reduce liver toxicity, a major problem with other cancer drugs.

The liver is the main site for drug metabolism. Many cancer therapies, including those that the Company’s scientists have worked on in previous programs, fail in clinical trials because a significant portion of the drug ends up in the liver and causes liver damage or liver failure. Nearly all cancer drugs including chemotherapy, antibody-drug conjugates, CAR-T, PD-1/PD-L1 checkpoint inhibitors and others, have this problem.

This is why the science team at CancerVax leveraged AI and machine-learning techniques to carefully design its technology to avoid healthy tissues and organs such as the liver.

The CancerVax platform is designed to harness the body’s existing immunity to detect, mark, and kill cancer cells with precision. At the core of the platform are nanoparticles that use a two-step cell-targeting mechanism.

1. Detection: The nanoparticles first bind to surface proteins highly associated with the target cancer cells (“Marker1”).
2. Activation: Once inside the cancer cell, the nanoparticles release proprietary “Smart mRNA” payloads that are only activated in the presence of cancer-specific genetic signatures (“Marker2”). These Smart mRNAs instruct the cancer cells to produce proteins associated with well-immunized diseases like measles. This effectively “tricks” the immune system into killing cancer cells as if they were common diseases.

In recent in-vitro studies, the Company successfully confirmed that its Smart mRNAs designed for pancreatic and liver cancers were dramatically deactivated in healthy human liver cells. In other words, the CancerVax nanoparticles will significantly de-target the liver and prevent healthy liver tissues from being misidentified as cancerous.

Dr. George Katibah, Chief Scientific Officer, commented, “These results are striking. In previous experiments, we were using artificial non-cancerous cell models, such as HEK293, to prove our hypothesis. This is the first time we’re using human-derived healthy liver cells, and the results were incredibly exciting and rewarding to see. This gives us confidence that our targeted therapy will reduce potential harm to the liver and other major organs.”

Dr. Adam Grant, Principal Scientist, added, “Our universal approach uses proprietary AI algorithms to mine the ever-growing databases of cancer genomics to find universal biomarkers for our Marker1 and Marker2. As a result, accessible off-the-shelf injections can be easily developed for multiple cancer types, instead of expensive custom therapies for individual patients. We believe some Marker1 and Marker2 combinations can be used for multiple cancer indications as well. In other words, a single version of our injection has the potential to treat patients across multiple cancer types. This reduces our drug cost dramatically, as there are approximately 200 cancer types compared to 8 billion individual people in the world.”

To learn more about the CancerVax platform, please watch the Short Explainer Video at https://cancervax.com/explainer

About CancerVax

CancerVax is a pre-clinical biotech company developing a novel Universal Cancer Treatment platform that will be customizable, as an injection, to treat many types of cancer. Our innovative approach DETECTS, MARKS, and KILLS only cancer cells. By making cancer cells look like well-immunized common diseases, such as measles or chickenpox, we intend to use the body's natural immune system to easily kill the cancer cells. We look forward to the day when treating cancer will be as simple as getting a shot — a better way to fight cancer. To learn more, please visit www.CancerVax.com

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CancerVax, Inc.
Tel: (805) 356-1810
communications@CancerVax.com

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